Healthy Budget Friendly School Lunch: Apple Sandwich

Step 1: Find a round apple

In this installment of the healthy budget friendly school lunches, I wanted to try apple sandwiches. I saw this idea awhile back and I think it's a great convenient and pretty way to eat an apple. I cut the apple with a star shape cookie cutter and filled it with natural creamy Kroger peanut butter. Then, eat it like a sandwich. If your school is nut-free, try sunflower seed butter. It has a similar consistency as peanut butter and the taste is also nutty.

Ava's favorite snack these days is a vegan Maple Oat Brown Sugar muffin. I bake a batch and freeze them. You can pull them out from the freezer and they will be defrosted by lunch or in our case afternoon snack. Ava has an egg allergy and I like this recipe because there's no egg and it uses coconut oil. I made them for a play date and the moms and kids loved them! I use silicon muffin cups to pack them in the lunch container. Kids love the different colors.

Step 2: Slice horizontally in the middle.

Step 3: Cut out the middle with a small cookie cutter shape. Fill with peanut or other nut butter and stack.

To round out the lunch, I added vanilla organic yogurt in a separate container. A budget friendly tip is to buy yogurt in large tubs instead of the small cups. It's cheaper to buy the larger container and then you can fill small reusable containers for snacks or lunch on the go. Another tip is to buy plain yogurt and flavor the yogurt with a homemade berry sauce or pure maple syrup. I don't like to buy flavored yogurts because of the artificial ingredients so I usually read the labels and stick with something simple.

You may also include the extra apple pieces in a reusable lunch bag in case your child would like more apples. You might notice that I don't include veggies. That's a hard one for us. Ava won't eat veggies except for a few forms. I usually can get her to eat spinach in homemade fruit and yogurt smoothies and we pile in the veggies in our spaghetti and meatballs. She will eat spinach or swiss chard even in lasagna and homemade pizza. I try to fit in veggies wherever I can, even if it's just a small taste with dinner. When is comes to packed school lunches, I try to give my daughter foods that she will eat because we've established that she likes them at home. It wouldn't work for us to experiment with foods that she won't eat while she's away because she will do just go without.

Muffin, apple-peanut butter sandwich, and yogurt

Have your kids picked out a fun lunch box? Ava picked this lunch box out and she carries it with pride to school on the days we pack her lunch. Some kids are sensitive to packing lunches and eating different things than their friends. Sometimes Ava's friends make comments in the morning asking why she's eating different pancakes for example. I tell them that the pancakes aren't good for her body and they would make her sick. Her teachers tell me that for the most part, she eats her own food when I provide it without a second thought which I'm glad to hear. I believe starting her out at this early age with eating healthy foods will carry forward to her adult life, which is why I make it a priority to provide it. Plus, it's really rewarding to know that she's eating nutritious foods as her body is growing. Also check out the Kroger "Trade-Worthy School Lunches" Pinboard for more ideas from moms.

By the way...Ava really liked the star-shaped apple sandwich. She thought it was really cool!

All packed up!

Healthy Budget Friendly School Lunch Ideas: Make Your Own Trail Mix

I started packing lunches and snacks for Ava's preschool when we discovered her egg allergy earlier this year. I also bring her a lunch on the days that she won't eat the hot lunch. I'd rather pack her a lunch than her just eating only the fruit. Healthy and budget friendly really do go together! When you cook your own meals you're saving money and you can focus on healthy ingredients for your family. I always prepare a packed lunch for our entire family. I spent about 30 minutes in the morning packing lunches for our family.

Kroger grocery stores have a fun healthy, budget friendly school lunch campaign right now. So I thought I'd join the fun. We have a Kroger just a few minutes from our house and I've been impressed with the store brand products such as cereal, peanut butter, and milk. We read the labels closely to buy healthier food options. For example, the Kroger natural creamy peanut butter is just peanuts and salt. I focus my shopping in the organic produce and natural food sections. I like the Key Ring app to store my store cards and you can access coupons in your mobile app. It's a great way to get the deals in the store without clipping the coupons.

Pretty and healthy lunch!

One of my favorite packable snacks is make-your-own trail mix. It makes a great addition to a lunch too! Depending on your mood or seasons, you can customize it with anything. I like sesame sticks because they add a salty, but healthy flair along with nuts. Yesterday, I couldn't resist these organic grapes at our local Kroger. They are delicious. I added nitrate-free ham roll-ups. Ava likes it when I roll up her ham or turkey lunch meat. And she especially loves when I cut her cheese slices into shapes.

 Healthy Lunch 1:  

• Organic grapes 
• Make your own Trail Mix (Kroger honey nut blitz cereal, roasted almonds, and cheddar sesame sticks)
• Nitrate free ham lunch meat roll-up
• Cheese stars
• Wheat crackers in the Wexy bag

Diggin in!

I made this lunch with smaller portions because I was making it as Ava's afternoon snack. I like the concept of a "nibble tray" so this works well as a snack for young ones too.  Here's a picture after she discovered her snack when she woke from her nap. She was excited and named all of the items. Fun shapes, colors and textures are great for kids lunches to keep the interested in the food.

Watch the blog for some other healthy and budget friendly school lunch ideas.

Giveaway! I'm going to give away a $25 Kroger gift card to one of my lucky readers this week after the posts. To win you can comment on the blog or Facebook, share, or repin to enter the drawing. Add your own healthy lunch ideas to the comments! I'll do a random drawing for the winner after all the posts are up. Keep reading...

Two-Year Old Art

"Look at my sparkly purple guitar, Mama"

A few weeks ago, we went through a big purge of all the art projects from Ava's daycare. Every week we bring home a tall stack of artifacts of Ava's world.

I filled up an entire laundry basket with the art projects and sorted through all of it. We saved some for us as a keepsake and others for her grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Others went to the recycling bin.

Saving my favorites to digital before the recycling!

I also found some old papers from when Ava was 18-months that reported about her day at school. I laughed when I saw her meals. One day she had 6-oz of breast milk in her sippy cup, a muffin for a snack, a taste of ketchup, bun and fruit for lunch. It reminded me of the days that Ava hardly ate any food. She was a late bloomer for eating solid foods. But now, she's eating so much and growing tall!

I'm always amazed by all the textures, colors, mediums that the art projects explore. They do seasonal art with dry leaves in the Fall or paint with balls or cookie cutters.

Now in her two-year old classroom, they do art with lots of glitter, scissors, glue sticks, crepe paper, paper plates, paints, and cutouts. The hat Ava is wearing in this photo says "Hooray for Me." That week, she proudly wore that hat when I arrived to pick her up.

It makes me feel good that she enjoys this time in her life. Art to her is playing with soapy water while exploring red apples and spatulas. Even though we purged the art, we know that the experience is not lost. She enjoyed the process of making the art and her parents enjoy looking at all the fun things she has done!